jellynewt

The Book Of Eli, a film set in the world of Fallout 3

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:15:00 +0000

I am a huge fan of Bethesda games.
Morrowind was the best game I've ever played and I love Oblivion too.

In my younger days I also loved playing Fallout (1 and 2).

Bless, do you remember when graphics looked like this...?

Fallout moved on a bit when Bethesda took over for Fallout 3. They united the complete freedom associated with Morrowind and Oblivion with superb post apocalypse graphics.

Now I love a good (fictional) apocalypse and I have to admit, I'm all about 'the look'.

So imagine my delight when I went to the cinema to see The Book of Eli - it looks exactly like Fallout 3. I don't mean reminiscent of Fallout 3, I mean it looks the same. The Book of Eli has only just come out so there isn't a large variety of screenshots on Google. But one or two images gives you the idea.

There are a number of settings (particularly towns and the insides of buildings) that are directly 'referencing' Fallout 3. If I had a copy of The Book of Eli and more time I'd do some comparison shots I would be able to illustrate it better. As it is I have neither of those things so you'll just have to make do with this image instead:

Not the best examples and not the comparative images I would have chosen, but you get the idea.

I should mention that in pointing out these similarities I'm not being critical. I loved The Book of Eli. It was self indulgent, preposterous and in love with its own look. In other words, everything I love (and am therefore willing to forgive) in a post-apocalypse film. It's had some terrible reviews. I'm taking a mature response to this, largely it involves sticking my fingers on my ears and going "lalala". And (mild spoiler ahead so look away to for the rest of the paragraph if you don't want to know) I rather liked the way it questioned the way faith can be used - to control people, to start wars or for hope. I know people have criticised its exploration of this subject but I thought that was quite interesting. I have a number of thoughts on this, but since it's still on at cinemas I don't want to give anything away.

Anyway, I enjoyed The Book of Eli, no matter what the critics say. Now, time to play Fallout...

The move from Wogan to Evans on BBC Radio 2

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:13:00 +0000

The fact that Radio 2 has cut Sarah Kennedy’s slot in favour of Chris Evans marks a double blow for me in the mornings. I used to enjoy waking up to Sarah Kennedy going through the newspapers, largely because I don’t buy one and Kennedy is mad as a hatter so it was doubly entertaining.

Wogan’s breakfast show largely involved Terry reading letters from listeners. But they were funny and clever a lot of the time and Wogan had a manner that made his show feel very intimate – like he was talking to a group of friends and not 8 million listeners. That, to me, is one of the things that distinguished him from other DJs. Indeed, Wogan's views on many things differ wildly from my own, but his manner was very affable and he made me smile in the mornings.

I really wanted to like the Chris Evans' breakfast show. I was prepared for it being different from Wogan – change is often a good thing. But I’m afraid I didn’t like it from the start. I am aware that loads of people loved it – I had a glance at Twitter and 90% of the Tweets seemed very positive, so I’m sure Evans will be a big hit. But it wasn’t for me. I’m not a fan of when DJs over rely on little recordings and jingles, so when he played three cheers for Moira Stewart (who is great and it’s brilliant that she’s back with the Beeb) I didn’t think it was a good sign, but figured well, it is Moira Stewart. However, it turned out it was a trend not an exception. Chris (who does not have then gentlest of voices anyway) had music and fuss going on in the background while he spoke about nothing at all and the overall effect was a little jarring (made worse by the fact he didn't really say anything interesting). I like something a bit gentler than that in the morning I think.

The topic of conversation revolved around things like “and it’s such and such’s anniversary today”; “best wishes to such and such on her birthday” and "such and such is driving to some place nobody cares about at the moment”, keep those calls coming in! In other words it was indistinguishable from many other shows on the radio. All of the wit, cleverness and creativity of Wogan is gone it seems. The final straw was when Evans revealed that they’d be speaking to children on the phone about what they’d done at the weekend. He spoke to a girl who tried to build an igloo and it hadn't gone very well. Now maybe it’s because I don’t have children myself, but really, on no level at all can I possibly care about that. I just found it totally inane and turned it off.

I did turn the show on again later, determined to give it another chance but Evans was discussing the same topic as an hour before (about Paul McCartney’s hair) and then it was back to ‘call in and tell us what you’re up to’ again.

The listener contribution on the Wogan show made you realise just how many very cleaver, witty and talented people there are out there. The listener contribution on the Chris Evans show reaffirms how little I’m interested in the trivial details of the lives of people I’ve never met.

I will be giving Chris Evans another go, but so far my opinion is that it’s just noisy in a vacuous/inane sort of way. The music was good though.

Some of my favourite things from 2009:

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 13:39:00 +0000

Moleskine books.

I especially love the pocket info books that allow you to make your own guide book to wherever you may be travelling.

Although their City books are great if they do one for the location you are travelling to.

I'm using the Japanese fold-out style one to create a giant collage of the year (2010) with drawings and images from my PoGo printer (see below). Much more interesting than keeping a diary...

In 2010 Moleskine are bringing out a new range 'Moleskine Passions':

Recipes, Wine, Book, Film, Music and Wellness journals to record and recall pieces of information, notes, clippings and drawings about your preferred passions.

My Polaroid PoGo Printer:

A portable (handheld) wireless printer that takes Polaroid paper - that means there's no ink to replace. Not only that but the pictures are also stickers if you peel the back off.

100 Year Diary:

I love this. You fill it in four times a year and there are loads of sections for you to keep track of different things you are into at different stages in your life.

Sony e-reader touch

An entire library in my handbag! Surely that's reason enough to love this. But no, I love this because it is just so Star Trek. I mean really. Welcome to the future!

650GB Portable hard drive:

So teeny tiny, yet so big! Rather like a TARDIS.

Photo relocation

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:42:00 +0000

Having toyed with a website for a while, I’ve decided that a blog would be a much better space in which to share my images/creative projects. There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones include the fact that the free webspace from google is a little inflexible for what I wanted; I can never remember the site address and it is difficult, as a visitor, to keep track of new images as they were spread around the site.

So, I’m relocating to here. Hopefully a better, new home for my photos where I will be able to upload new work and have a space available for comments too.

It is a relocation, so initially the images uploaded may be ones you’ve seen before, only this time with a short commentary too. Sorry about the repetition. I’ll get it over with as soon as possible.

When the relocation is complete I will delete the website and that will be that.

Home Delivery Network

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:43:00 +0000

A brief report of my 4 encounters with the Home Delivery Network (HDNL):

Encounter 1:

Delivery driver left my Christmas presents on the front doorstep (we live on a main road).

Result: parcels (i.e. all my Christmas presents) were stolen.

Encounter 2:

Delivery driver threw £60 of (hardback) books over our (over 6ft) gates, in the rain.

Result: Books not only landed in lake-like puddle, but also landed on their corner and were destroyed.

Encounter 3:

Driver stuck a card through our door that, rather cryptically, simply had the word ‘Geoff’ written on it.

Result: Parcel was ‘missing’, driver said it had been delivered to ‘Geoff’. No-one ever worked out who ‘Geoff’ was, where the parcel went etc. In fact, why they just didn’t ask the driver EXACTLY what he’d done with the parcel I’ll never know. It was so difficult to contact anyone at the company, and they were so inefficient when we did it took almost 5 months for us to get replacement goods (because HDNL said the parcel had been delivered, we could not get a replacement). In the end the company we ordered from sent replacement goods as a gesture of ‘good will’.

Encounter 4:

Driver returned our parcel to the company we ordered it from stating that our address didn’t exist. Strange, since DHL had delivered a parcel to us the same day, from the same company.

Result: goods had to be re-sent, this time with DHL. Amazingly, their driver found that we did exist after all.

Conclusion:

On the basis of my 0% success rate with this company, I think it’s fair enough to conclude they’re rubbish. I wish Amazon would use a different delivery company.

Redemption 2009

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:55:00 +0000

Redemption 2009 was brilliant.
This was our first time at this particular convention and it certainly lived up to expectations. For years friends have been telling us about how friendly and fun it was - and it's true!
As with all things though, hearing endless praise is never as much fun as enjoying a good moan or bit of gossip. So I shall swiftly move on from my unending praise for Redemption and everyone there to discuss the Britannia Hotel in Coventry.
What is interesting about this Hotel is that the staff were lovely without exception and the convention was hosted really well. Yet, beyond it's lovely marble foyer lies the grimmest room I've ever stayed in. That's right, worse than my student house as an undergrad.
Here's some of the things that were grim (with some links to a few photos):
The room door. Aside from the yellowing paintwork, the overwhelming smell of cigarettes and sweat and the peeling wallpaper, one of the 1st things you noticed as you opened the door was this:

There were lots of things to love about this room. It was so clear that it had had nothing done to it for many, many years. The bath had holes in the enamel while the sink had been cracked and sealed with what looked like a piece of chewing gum:

Moving into the room itself, it was hard to decide what to be alarmed by first. There was a double bed, as ordered, but with a 3/4 size mattress in it. I was alarmed by what may happen if I rolled over in the night:

The bedside cabinets and dressing table were covered in strange stains. There were many, but I think it's suffice to only show one - you get the idea:

There were matching ones on the other furniture.

The carpet was the pièce de résistance however; boasting not only a plethora of stains, but numerous aged blood stains all round the bed. I'm glad I took my slippers.

Coventry itself was a land of grey concrete, an as such it was more a blessing than a curse that the windows were so dirty it was difficult to see through them clearly. I first of all mistook the effect of the dirty window in this photo for low lying smog.

But no, a glance in the other direction reveals the layer of filth that's the culprit.

Based on this level of hygiene I wasn't keen on the in-room facilities...

Although the downstairs facilities didn't leave much to be desired either:

Having said this, downstairs in the hotel was a better experience. Although some debate exists about the dubiously named 'Bar Rogue'. Perhaps, when originally conceived it was supposed to be called 'Bar Rouge'? Who knows. Anyway, whilst in the said 'Bar Rogue' a group of us decided to order lunch. Pasta Provencale was on the menu (although they'd written 'Paste Provencale') . What could possibly go wrong? When it arrived; however, it was pasta (not paste, so they got that bit right) placed in a bowl of tomato juice. Imagine that you've bought yourself a lovely tin of plum tomatoes, removed the tomatoes and added enough salt to immediately induce heart disease. Warm up this juice and place it in a bowl. Dump some pasta in the middle of it. Do not stir. Serve to people who have paid a fiver for it. Yum - highly acidic and salty! My only regret is that I didn't manage to get a photo. Having talked the lovely Una into having a taste she immediately proclaimed "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted!" (well... a version of that anyway) just as the waiter arrived at our table with another one for Peter. You couldn't have asked for better timing. Needless to say he took the meals away and we (ie everyone in our group who'd ordered the dreaded pasta provencale) ordered something else. But there was no opportunity for a pic, which is such a shame since the sauce matched the blood stains on the carpet so well.
What was so brilliant about that meal was that it was so obviously made up of the left over tomato juice from the cooked breakfast that morning. As if they were going to fool anyone (there was no fried tomato at the breakfasts, instead you moved along the buffet helping yourself to your eggs sausage and beans. Then at the end was a huge bowl of what looked like hot peeled testicles and a large spoon. Just what you need to see first thing in the morning. Our pasta was clearly served in this 'testicle juice').
So there we go.
But it's not all bad; the Britannia Hotel in Coventry has a nice foyer.
And Redemption was so good, we'll even go back!
P.S. It's interesting to compare our room with the advertised rooms on the hotel's website...

Spitting

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:13:00 +0000

Spitting.

Let’s face it, it’s gross. Yet I am ever astounded by the amount of ‘spitters’ out there. I mean, really, this is the 21st century. News reports are claiming we’ve reached the pinnacle of our evolution.

I am interested in the fact that what is to me, a disgusting behavioral trait, is still acceptable and even fashionable, in some circles. This interest has arisen from the fact that the other night I was sat on the train to Liverpool. As it’s the end of the line the train sits for several minutes at the station. During this time I looked out of the window and watched a group of lads (all wearing variations on the same tracksuit – sorry to be so stereotypical about the whole thing, but there you go) having a cigarette before boarding. One member of this group had a remarkable habit. In succession he would have a drag of his cigarette; inhale; exhale; spit. Drag; inhale; exhale; spit. And so on.
It was gross.
It was almost hypnotic.
It was so well practiced - that special kind of spitting that only the proficient can achieve – where it seems to travel an awful long way. If I were to spit, I imagine a rather embarrassing dribble would be the result – not having nurtured the habit and all. By the time he’d finished smoking, I understood the need for the North West flood warnings.

But my question is why? What’s the attraction? I mean it wasn’t like he was chewing the tobacco. Can anyone provide an explanation for this strange cultural practice?

I await your thoughts (or gross tales – they’re always fun too). In the meantime I’m off into town - I’ll just get my brolly.

Vibrator Fails to Satisfy

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:40:00 +0000

…don’t you just hate it when that happens?...

I am, of course, referring to the ‘Vibrator of Death’, an sf story by “Harold J. Richards, PhD.” in 1928’s Amazing Stories Quarterly.

Immediately drawn to a story about a vibrator of death (who wouldn’t be) I was not at all disappointed to discover that it was a tale of a giant vibrating machine. This, I felt, was an essential addition to my old magazine collection.

To whet the excited reader’s appetite, the editor tells us:

“Vibration, our scientists tell us, is life. Where there is no vibration there can be no life. On the other hand, too much vibration, as we all know is likely to prove disastrous. Anyone who has been shaken back and forth rapidly for a length of time will testify to this simple statement. This fact is well brought out in the present story written by a well known scientist, and we know you’ll enjoy it.”

Well, with such a recommendation [the bit about being shaken rapidly amuses me greatly], and the promise of a tale of the rapid vibrations of the (and I quote) “swaying thriller” that provides the “vibration of a lifetime! Feel the new sensation!” how could I resist? If any scepticism remained it was soon quashed. The questioning Andrews looks on the vibrator and wonders “how can anyone enjoy…?” only to be interrupted by a friend who tells him “you have to use your imagination. It embodies motion, novelty and sudden change, which are the root of every successful amusement device”.

Wow, the root of every successful amusement device eh? Cool. The only problem is, as the story proves in its lengthy scientific passages, too much thrill will (literally) make your heart explode. That’s right, “the physiological effect of vibrating too rapidly” means that “as soon as the speed of the thriller reaches a certain limit the changes in direction…means that the heart [will be] bumped forcibly against the walls of the thoracic cavity, and finally the valves will burst” resulting in “spurts of blood”.

Oh dear – that doesn’t sound good.

It turns out though, that “any skilful scientist” could easily predict such a misadventure. Conveniently for us, the protagonist works out the “vibration of a rigid shaft as a function of its rigidity and distribution of weight [in] a mathematical study.” He finds that “in a mathematical investigation 3798 pounds of material must be removed from the upper part of vibrations per minute… the upper part of the shaft contained a hollow space of 45 cubic feet, and by simple division I ascertained that the material removed must have weighed 844 pounds to the cubic foot. In other words, its density with 13.5… Mercury has a density of 13.6 and I concluded that the hollow space had not been truly conical, as I had assumed in my calculations…“ …and on, and on, he goes, in a manner that’s really not very thrilling at all.

Actually, I don’t mind the fact that, as in this tale, so much old magazine sf was an excuse for mathematical or scientific discussions. The problem with this story, if I’m honest, is simply that it’s boring. It may be about a giant thrill machine, but it’s not a thrill to read.

So, it turns out that in every way, this vibrator really did, fail to satisfy.

Such a shame.

Digital Natives and Wellsian Thumbs

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:27:00 +0000

Further to my previous post (‘The Future’) on my responses to Phil Dick and Wellsian evolution I discovered this write up on ‘Digital Natives’. Aside form the definitions of the ‘digital native’ which are interesting in themselves there was this information about the digital native’s use of the thumb:

“Microsoft [brought up] the notion that kids of tomorrow would evolve differently from those of today, in the physical sense. They quoted the example of a person ringing a doorbell. You or I would walk up to the doorbell and push the button - but we would more than likely use our index finger to push the bell. A Digital Native on the other hand would more than likely use their thumb - because with all the thousands of hours of texting on mobile phones and playing nintendo they’ve been doing it’s logical to assume (according to Microsoft) that over time these kids will evolve larger and more flexible thumbs”.

It is strange to discover that my evolutionary predictions, said in jest, are being theorized in reality. I think the word it 'thumbidextrous'.

On another note, this paper on digital natives and digital immigrants is interesting.

The Future?

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Recently I have been re-reading Explorations of the Marvellous – a series of lectures given at the institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1975. In this collection is a paper by Philip K. Dick, called “Man, Android, Machine”. Dick unfortunately was too unwell to deliver his talk at the time, but his lecture is still included in the printed anthology, a real treat as Dick’s writings (fictional and non-fictional) are always thought provoking and interesting. In this printed lecture, one sentence particularly caught my eye. He states:

“The greatest change growing across our world these days is probably the momentum of the living towards reification, and at the same time a reciprocal entry into animation by the mechanical.”

Obviously, this statement arises as a result of Dick’s personal paranoia about the nature of the (blurring) boundaries between what is human and what is machine, and his distrust of machines that appear life-like (or at least simulate a manifestation of human emotions or actions). 33 years on, I wonder if this statement – based on an extrapolative vision of the future of technology – is as true as it once seemed. I think that nowadays technology is not necessarily about simulating life; the increase in mobile technology means that it has become more an extension of the self. What is being formed through the progression of technology is more cyborg than android.

Dick’s statement that: “We hold no pure categories of the living versus the non living” (my emphasis) is truer than he possibly thought. Whereas he is referring to the reification of the human and the animation of the machine, his statement is accurate today in a different way - in that human and machine function in conjunction with one another. At its least invasive level, technology (through increasing mobility and miniaturisation) functions as accessory, and at its most intrusive level it is deemed necessity.

For example: who in generation Y is without a mobile phone? With a camera on it? And a variety of other functions. How many people deem this technology necessary (cries of ‘I couldn’t live without my phone’ can be heard everywhere). I myself carry round a phone that is a camera, mp3 player, personal organiser, internet browser, radio, calculator, converter, stop watch, alarm clock, document reader, games machine and least of all phone. This technology, like the mobile pc on which I’m writing this, is not animated as such, it is more an extension – or vehicle for expression – of my own animation. Nevertheless, I have to wonder; does this type of combination of human and technology result in reification?
I fear it may.

I have often been heard joking that Wells’s vision of the future of humanity, posited in The Man of the Year Million, is no longer (metaphorically) accurate. Wells foresaw that the species would evolve into large heads (to accommodate great brains holding vast intelligence) and large hands (the teachers and agents of the brain) while the rest of the body would become simpler and less prominent. I would argue, however, that it is more likely that evolution will result in smaller heads housing enormous staring eyes; and large hands will be replaced by giant, hypertrophied thumbs able to type text messages and manipulate games controllers with great skill. Based on our current technology, this seems to be a more accurate Wellsian vision of the future.

Dick recognised, and feared, that humans and machines could potentially become indistinguishable, especially if machines imitate human behaviour. His discussion depends on the human and the machine being seen as separate entities. However, what if human evolution were to allow us to become more comfortably ‘one’ with the machine? We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two, because we would be the machines.

Perhaps Dick wasn’t as paranoid as he should have been?
Now that’s not something you get to say every day.

NB: All of this assumes, of course, a continuing growth of technology and a hypothetical Wellsian model of evolution. This may not actually be the case at all. Not because of the metaphorical nature of some of the concepts discussed here, but because there is no guarantee that there will be any such progression of technology or evolution in the way we currently conceive it. Reflecting the contemporary apocalypticism that permeates our 21st Century culture (with global warming, terrorist threats, declining resources etc) I propose the idea that maybe technological ‘advancement’ as we know it will inevitably have to come to an end. Perhaps, as the earth’s resources are used up, only an elite will have access to technology, the rest of us will devolve into primitivism. That is, of course, if the race is to survive at all. Dick himself said, the universe is kind to us,” it must like and accept us or we would not be here”. He quotes Abraham Maslow, who concludes, ‘otherwise nature would have executed us long ago’.
The question now is, has nature gone off us?

Either way, what we have here are two extremes. As usual the future most likely lies, not somewhere in between, but somewhere completely unexpected.

The Horror! The Horror!

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:24:00 +0000

Check out Peter's new blog - I finally convinced him that he should have one (with some additional prodding from friends).

Orbital 2008

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:37:00 +0000

Orbital: Eastercon 2008

We have just spent 5 brilliant days at Orbital – the annual science fiction convention. This year it was hosted at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel at Heathrow. Over 1200 sf fans got together over the Easter weekend to meet up, discuss and share their enjoyment of sf.

One of the strangest things about being at a con is the fact that you enter a self-contained world. Once inside the hotel we went for the Star Trek type womb fantasy of 'this hotel is our self contained, all providing universe for the next 5 days'. It's amazing how quickly it is possible to adapt to being in a place - so that the outside world seems unreal. The surrounding areas seemed so divorced from the convention that when we got another glimpse of them from the car park as we were leaving, 'normality' had taken on an unfamiliar, alien quality. Semi-detached houses and urban decay - the norm when we arrived at the hotel, seemed strangely out of place after spending all that time amongst marble and wood and crisp sheets and thick white towels. Now, back home our house too feels like an alien space - devoid of fans, real ale and booksellers. It has been a strange day today, reacclimatizing and getting over a strange sense of grief that the con is over for another year (to try to overcome our post con depression, we have, like Mr Roy and Procrastinatrix booked for the next 2 years).

In terms of the con itself here are the highlights:

The hotel. This was the first time I’ve ever stayed in a 5 star hotel. It seems to me that, aesthetically at least, what distinguishes the 5 star hotel from the other varieties, is the fact that it is made primarily of marble and wood. So, as you can imagine, it was beautiful, if a little strange in its décor. On the one hand there was marble floors, wood panelling, enormous chandeliers and on the other there were areas that were modern, including illuminated bridges (like something out of a 1920s musical) over glass areas with glass fish, but surrounded by old fashioned statues and antiques from around the world. Anyway, it was delightfully posh – so posh there was a phone in the en suite and in the public loos were individual towels to dry your hands – yes – real towels (must admit though these disappeared as 1200 guests arrived!).

The discussion panels. Except for one where one of the panellists was clearly rather drunk, the panels were great. I particularly enjoyed the one on our future survival on this changing planet and the one on surveillance societies – these 2 will get separate blog posts about their discussions at a later date. I even enjoyed being mocked about going to a panel which had on it a certain author whose book I reviewed rather negatively recently. The reason I was mocked (apart from the fact this author is now one of my editors) was because the panel’s subject matter was ‘should authors respond to reviews?’. I got all kinds of threats that I would be named and shamed. My only consolation was that Christopher Priest, who was also on the panel, had also written a negative review of this author’s work in the past too. So at least I wasn’t alone.

The guest of honour talks:

China Mieville, as well as turning out to be a really nice guy and friend of someone we work with (weird in itself – small world) gave a great talk. Again the subject matter will be a blog post for a later date. But his speech sparked a fantastic debate about the death of the author that night in the real ale bar (discussions at length over a beer are officially one of my hobbies and since cons are just like a 5 day version of that it’s no wonder I had a good time).

Niel Gaiman read some fantastic pieces of writing to us and spoke very entertainingly. Although not as intellectual as China Mievill’s talk, Gaiman’s was interesting, amusing, and when he read his fiction, captivating.

Charles Stross. Went to this one a bit late. Met Geoff Ryman and had a little chat with him and we decided to sneak into Stross’s talk. Geoff is so tall I manged to use him to hide behind. Stross’s speech was more technology based that the other two talks. Interesting in a different way I suppose.

The dealer’s room. Got some great stuff this year. A couple of books on Lovecraft I’m very pleased with and there will probably be another blog post on those at some point. Best of all though I managed to get some fantastic 1920s sf magazines with some great story titles – ‘Vibrator of Death’ definitely warrants another blog post – expect that one immanently!

Meeting up with some great people – got to see some old friends and make some new ones.

The general mix that you get at cons of fans, authors, academics etc all chat in to one another in one great melting pot.

The real ale bar.

The food. This was the best convention food I’ve had, especially considering the amount of people being catered for. The only problem is that all that good food has had waistline implications. All I’m going to say is that P. has put on 4lb since we went away. And since he is officially the thinnest man ever there’s no hope for the rest of us! I blame pastries at breakfast…

I’m going to finish by saying that the con organisers deserve a massive thank you – this was the best Eastercon we’ve been to.

I shall blog again (when I get time) about some of the points mentioned in this post – particularly ‘Vibrator of Death’. I’ll also post the photos on my facebook as soon as poss…

P.S. Arthur C. Clarke - RIP

'Trusted' information

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:50:00 +0000

I was interested to read an academic journal article recently that had wikipedia listed in its sources.

What shall we find in bibliographies next?

Bloggs Bob, (3/1/07) ‘Conversation with my mate in the pub’, (recalled 18/3/08)?

The Brick Testament

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:24:00 +0000

This website is fantastic. The Bible told in Lego. And since we all know that Lego is the toy of the Gods, there's a nice symmetry.

Credit must go to Mister Roy for finding this... a slightly more normal discovery than his best beloved, Procrastinatrix, who discovered this website all about Kitlers.

The internet is a strange place indeed...

The Year of the Sex Olympics

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:36:00 +0000

Further to my last post, I got to thinking about television and the way it has gone in recent years (reality TV, endless shows like Dancing on Ice, X Factor Pop Idol etc) and it brought to mind 1968s The Year of the Sex Olympics.
Prophecy? I think so.

'On Sf' Or 'Why I hate Torchwood'

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:05:00 +0000

Current research commitments have led me to revisit my old science fiction love Babylon 5. The show has its flaws – what show doesn’t, but overall it was one of the most well told stories on television. Reading about the series’ creator J. Michael Straczynski and his experiences of working in television has got me thinking about how far television sf has come since B5.

In creating Babylon 5, Stracyznski wished to address the dearth of intelligent television sf. Babylon 5 was the first major attempt at a science fiction series with an overall story arc, and which attempted to capture the genre’s defining ‘sense of wonder’, so familiar to science fiction readers.

B5 was the first multi-layered US TV sf tale with an overall narrative trajectory. More like a novel for the screen, it was complex, filled with foreshadowing and assumed an intelligent, engaged audience. Many of the show’s strengths lie in its unpredictability - during its 5 year run main characters are replaced (B5 has 3 captains as each takes on a different role in the narrative), and most of the characters change (dramatically in many cases) during the show’s course. Along with its richness of narrative and character, B5 deals with philosophical questions, issues of faith (in a technological universe) and a number of interesting sf concepts (such as time travel, morality, pre-destination and the nature of the self). It is Jungian, political, historical, philosophical and yes, a little over written at times. This, I personally, can forgive. I can also forgive its now dated CGI. Normally I’m not a fan of CGI when it’s used in large quantities (usually because it is a sign of style over substance) but in this case there simply wasn’t the budget to make something so epic for the small screen without the aid of a PC (or an Amiga to be more precise). The success of the show is that the narrative and the characters are so good that the CGI works as a facilitator to the story – more substance over style than style over substance. It is the strength of the story that also allows me to forgive its other flaws – as a whole B5 is as good as any sf novel.

Since B5 we have had some fantastic new TV science fiction. One example of this, (which appears to have been influenced by B5 directly in many ways) is the new Battlestar Galactica (BSG).

Like B5, BSG also has 3 dimensional characters changing as they respond to their circumstances, and it does not offer morally simplistic representations of events or people. Main characters who, on the one hand, are good people but are addicted to drugs, are alcoholics, who sometimes do terrible things in terrible circumstances and who are psychologically disturbed by catastrophic events are found in both B5 and BSG.

Battlestar also takes from B5 the notion that a happy resolution does not have to be reached every 45 minute episode (or even ever in the whole arc – those familiar with B5 will think of Londo here, and Sheridan’s departure in ‘Sleeping in Light’). I will never forget my shock at seeing the B5 episode ‘Believers’ in which a child’s parents will not let him have a lifesaving operation due to their religious beliefs. The doctor goes ahead with the operation anyway and the child is cured. That’s normally the end of the episode. But in this case, when they discover what the Dr has done the parents kill their son – since, in their eyes he is now an abomination. Similarly in ‘Confessions and Lamentations’, doctors search for a cure to a plague, only to discover it too late and an entire race is wiped out. At a time when Star Trek dominated TV sf this kind of plot resolution was powerful stuff. This type of narrative has only recently been matched by BSG, when, in season one, the ships that can escape the Cylons leave everyone else to die. No rescue mission, nothing. This kind of ‘un-cosy’ television marked a drastic movement away from the dominant Star Trek mould.

In Britain, the opposite of ‘the B5 effect’ appears to have taken place. We’ve gone from making series like Blake 7, the BBc’s Day of the Triffids and The Last Train et cetera to ‘New Who’ and Torchwood. New Dr Who is, it proclaims, for children so I won’t address that here. Torchwood, however, is Who’s adult spin off. Bearing in mind my above comments, imagine my amusement when I was reading this website about Torchwood and was offered this insight into how it is challenging TV sf:

‘Last season Gwen hopped into Owen's bed despite her devotion to her clueless live-in lover, Rhys (Kai Owen). "It was completely out of character for Gwen," Myles [who plays Gwen] said, "but that's what good drama is all about. You don't want to spoon-feed a sci-fi audience, you want to challenge them, so none of these characters are safe." In the future, Gwen "does the best she can" with monogamy, Myles said. "But it's a case of anything is possible with the Torchwood bunch."

Hard hitting stuff indeed. Torchwood's obsession with sex is the pinnacle of its intellectual feats. Clearly Farscape needn’t have spent its 4 seasons addressing questions on the nature of reality, or the madness that may accompany estrangement. BSG needn’t have spent the past 3 seasons questioning the nature of humanity and what happens if machines behave more humanely than organic beings; or making contemporary political comments, in which the main characters resort to suicide bombings to try to free themselves from their oppression. And Babylon 5 needn’t have bothered trying to formulate new myths and a sense of wonder so often missing from TV sf. If only we’d known that if we just make all the characters sleep with one another, no matter how unattractive/morally apprehensible they are, we’d have all been suitably challenged (presumably because all sf fans are so sex starved they crave seeing the ‘battle with monogamy’). If people think that this is sf that challenges its audience something is very wrong. It’s not even good escapism; it’s just utter rubbish.

Needless to say I’m not a fan of Torchwood. It has crap sf concepts and treats it’s audience as if it is stupid (examples that come to mind mainly involve unintelligent plot events that snap viewers out of their willing suspension of disbelief; or Owen date raping someone using alien technology; or the fact that all of the characters have only one dominant preoccupation – sleeping with one another. This kind of lack of emotional depth really annoys me). But I have developed an amusing drinking game which involves drinking every time a character makes a pass at someone. This results in anebriation very quickly and dulls the pain (before people say ‘just don’t watch it then’ – I don’t actually watch it now – I only watched it 1st in disbelief, then in the hopes it would get better, and then in disbelief again, as all media publications were telling us how great it is. This, I think, astounds me most of all).

It’s not that I demand all SF to be of a high standard – I just can’t bare this idea that all sf fans want is novelty (in this case sex) and gadgets. This coupled with the idea that you’re making challenging sf is just insulting.

Russell T. Davies’ concept of sf seem to derive from what a juvenile hormonal soap opera writer would think would be really cool in adult sf. British sf under Russell T. Davies has become style over substance, novelty over sense and sex over story. Quite frankly it’s vacuous and rubbish. I find this demise of the BBCs science fiction output infuriating.

It seems now, that to see the legacy of B5, eyes need to turn to the US or to shows like Life on Mars which they won’t label sf for fear of alienating audiences. Grrrr.

Mono no aware.

noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:36:00 +0000

Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers'
imperial dreams
- Basho (1644-1694)

A self indulgent post on the nature of mono no aware and its place in our everyday lives:

All of my life I have always been fascinated by mono no aware (although when I was younger I did not know there was a name for it) - the beauty in sadness and loss. Loss is an intrinsic part of life, yet, it seems to me, that in the West particularly (note that mono no aware is a Japanese/Buddhist concept) we spend much of our time avoiding that truth. We use what Freud calls palliative measures including escapism, hedonism and religion to help us to forget the unpalatable truths about life – the centrality of loss and the possibility of meaninglessness.

Personally, I find this topic captivating.

To me life can be divided in to three states: comfort or contentment (often characterised by an absence of feeling); unhappiness (where the prevailing objective is the desire for happiness); and happiness. Happiness I find the most interesting of these three states as it is the one people spend much of their time trying to attain. Since life is characterised by two certainties: change and death we know that all things are transient. Hence, happiness can never be a permanent state. The notion of ‘happy ever after’ is fallacy, because everything must end. That which makes us happy will, at some point cease or change; or if not, then the end will come in the form of death, where happiness ceases, to be replaced by nothingness (or whatever afterlife you happen to believe in).

For me personally, I find that moments of happiness can become preoccupied with the idea of loss. That all must end. The laughing moment will, only a short while later, be a mere memory never to be recaptured. Time spent with a loved one is a series of passing moments. One day youth will be replaced by old age and the impending realisation that life is coming to an end, and the recognition that it wasn’t long enough to appreciate it.

A realisation of these things needs to be accepted for what it is – simply the truth about the nature of the universe, in which change is the inevitable consequence of the unceasing march of time. It is the way it always has been and the way it will always be. There is no point becoming depressed about it; that would be like spending every day obsessed with the idea of your own death. Instead it is about accepting this truth and appreciating the beauty of each moment. The realisation of the sadness inherent in the fact that all things are passing, should serve to make us appreciate more strongly the beauty in that which is around us.

Recognising that in the sadness of the transience of life there is a poignant beauty, to me at least, is the true meaning of mono no aware.

Now I see her face,
the old woman, abandoned,
The moon her only companion

- Basho (1644-1694)

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noreply@blogger.com (jellynewt) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:32:00 +0000

Having abandoned Livejournal in favour of Facebook, I find myself with no place to put my personal random musings.
Why not return to Livejournal then?
Well, the answer to this question lies in the nature of the blog. Livejournal is used by many for what it says in the title – an online journal. This is great for keeping in touch with friends and hearing what people are up to. More and more though, I found myself on Livejournal either, laboriously wading through stories of what people I barely know did over the weekend, or skipping large chunks of it to get to news of my friends. Increasingly I had to wade through posts of (sometimes) very personal information that I didn’t really want to know, by people I didn’t really know. As such I haven’t been on Livejournal for ages and have decided to enter the world of the blog.

As it is my nature to get drawn into these things and then get fed up when I feel they are a bind (this happens every time I start a paper diary) I make no promises about how often I will update this – who knows, it may be every day or it may be every year. This way I do not have to feel bad if I neglect to post for a while. This has worked well with my paper diary which I now have no rules about updating – I merely write it when I have something to say.

So, with that, I’ll be back – when I have something more to say…